POP tools help stores stir upholstery sales

By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, June 3, 2007

High Point — From point-of-purchase materials to special displays, upholstered furniture manufacturers have initiated a variety of programs to help retailers with product sell-through.

Particularly now, with business in the tank, stores are looking for whatever help they can get, whether it's on the scale of an Ashley or La-Z-Boy or a more modest approach. And manufacturers that can push their products not only from the factory to sales floors but from sales floors to homes are likely to reap more business.

"One of the things we've added in the last year, and it's really growing, especially with our stationary sofa program, is Simplicity by Best Home Furnishings," said Eric Vollmer, the company's advertising coordinator.

Best offers 700 fabric options, and the company decided a year ago to make it simpler for everyone by offering a special swatch book that marries covers to certain sofas and correlates sofas with pillows and chairs.

Vollmer said the collection is discounted because it's more efficient from a manufacturing standpoint and leads to a higher sales volume for the retailer — and the manufacturer.

"It's a buy-in program for our dealers so not everyone can carry this," Vollmer said. "To be a Simplicity sofa dealer, there are certain requirements they have to meet. But when they do, feedback is very positive.

"We have more and more dealers signing up, and it's affected our stationary sofa sales."

The company supports Simplicity with POP signage, ad slicks and other materials.

"It's real competitive out there, and we're seeing results," Vollmer said.

Upholstery manufacturing and wood import company Fraenkel/Advantage tries to help its dealers generate bigger tickets by offering whole-room packages, said Brian Akchin, president and CEO.

Coordinated approach

"Because of our sourcing abilities with tables and lamps and other fixtures, we have really pushed our dealers into room settings," Akchin said. "We photograph everything with tables and lamps that match and provide the whole package to the dealer to help him move the group.

"Is that rocket science? No. We're not doing anything that hasn't been done before. We're just trying to service our dealers the best we can."

Fraenkel/Advantage is "all over our dealers with service," Akchin added, "and I'm just praying there's an empty slot on their floor that we can fill."

The room package, backed with photography of additional room settings not shown on the floor, includes rugs, botanicals, lamps and accessories.

"They can sell the entire room package — just like Rooms to Go. The dealers love it," Akchin said, as do consumers. "Most consumers want the work done for them."

High-end source French Heritage took its 25 best-selling pieces and grouped them together in a French Heritage Shop program, an antiques gallery concept the California-based company launched six years ago.

A key to the Shops program, and to the year-old smaller version — French Quarter — is that the customer can buy the product off the floor just like she would if she were shopping an antique store, said Laura Whipp, director of press and public relations.

Since the product comes from France, the company keeps its best sellers in stock at a warehouse in High Point so it can replenish a dealer's floor in no time flat.

"We put a little tag on the items in the Shop to let the retail salespeople know that they're immediately available," Whipp said. "So they can sell the one off the floor and in the next week receive a new one. It has done really well, and the salespeople love it."

Dealers dedicate 1,200-plus square feet to the Shop or 500 to 700 square feet to the French Quarter boutique. In return, French Heritage provides a catalog and other materials that support the formats.

Whipp said the approach has captured more sales. "It's wonderful to build real loyalty with customers who come back regularly to us. It's been wonderful. Now we're able to have another option."

Backing the brand

You'd think that having an American icon like Martha Stewart associated with your product, you wouldn't worry about sell-through. But Bernhardt does.

According to Heather Bloom, director of brand development for Bernhardt, which offers the licensed Martha Stewart furniture line, dealer support materials are a key ingredient in the program's success.

They include a Style Guide that outlines paint, accessory and bedding information for each collection; gallery design assistance for display and merchandising ideas; a full range of branded point-of-purchase materials, advertising guidelines and graphic standards to help retailers attain and maintain the right graphic look and feel of the brand; newspaper ad templates, TV spots and radio spots; and a high-traffic, dynamic Web site with store locater function.

Several manufacturers said photography and catalogues also are key selling tools.

"We have invested very heavily over the past 12 to 14 months in photography, because in our current catalog the photography hasn't been updated and doesn't really showcase us as a medium-to-high-end producer," said Holly Blalock, director of marketing for C.R. Laine Co.

She said the company has re-photographed at least 90% of its offerings in preparation for a new catalog that will be in circulation in July.

"We stepped up in a major way with a catalog that is user friendly and has great photography. Mostly simple fabric applications (are featured) so that people can appreciate the detail of the silhouettes," Blalock said.

Having high-quality photography available is critical, she added, because it translates to the company's catalog, its Web site and to media editorial coverage.

She said C.R. Laine monitors its Web site through log-ins and "we're seeing increased activity every quarter. The company requires its sales representatives to have a laptop computer so they can use the Web site for educational and selling purposes.

Editors also appreciate great photography, said Blalock, and provide "opportunities that push consumers into our stores."

For example, a photo of a room setting featuring product from the company's Jessica McClintock collection, as tallied by the American Home Furnishings Alliance, appeared in 86 publications and reached 1.6 million consumers in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.

"You can't pay for that kind of (exposure)," said Blalock.

Big is better

At Flexsteel, Lee Fautsch, vice president of sales, residential, said the company has reorganized its catalog, which "continues to be a huge selling tool at the retail level."

The company displays its products full size on a page, never using smaller images or thumbnails.

"We lay it out as big as we possibly can," said Justin Mills, advertising administrator, noting that the catalog also contains as much information as possible on sizes, covers and finishes.

In fact, because of Flexsteel's depth of product, it has developed several category-specific catalogs for motion, leather (called Latitudes), the licensed Wrangler line and, in the near future, Wrangler's 47 Series.

Full-size photography "paints a better picture if you don't have something on the floor," noted Mills. "For the customer to visualize how the furniture is going to look in their homes from a thumbnail is very tough."

Pairing a 17-inch by 17-inch swatch of fabric or leather with a large catalog photo helps solve that problem, he added.

"The major thing I hear from retailers is that they're always looking for current, updated photography," Mills said.

For that, Flexsteel maintains an online image bank that its customers can use with customers or to create their own promotional materials.

American Leather puts so much stock into quality photography that, for its sixth- generation AU catalog, it hired photographer Scott Harben, whose list of awards includes the prestigious Cannes advertising award for his work with BMW.

In addition, American Leather has been really successful with its Leather Wall, an in-store display that has been recently updated with a new color, name (Education Center) and other features.

According to Matthew Hayward, vice president of corporate marketing, the company really pushed its Leather Wall point-of-sale display as a means of showing the value of the American Leather brand within store locations.

The display features the company's leather grades organized by color, "which is how the consumer shops," said Hayward. The back of the unit holds free leather samples for the consumer to take home.

The display also provides a home to all the materials a sales associate needs to sell American Leather furniture, including catalogs.

"The salesman doesn't have to leave the customer because all the literature is at his fingertips," Hayward said.

In addition, the company has increased its selection of leathers on the display and included point-of-sale signage that explains the value of leather as a lifetime investment and how to choose the right leather for a particular lifestyle.

"Forty percent of what consumers learn about a brand is within the store environment, and that's why we think it's important," Hayward said.